1. Field
The disclosure relates to a computer implemented method, computer system, and computer program product for dynamically aggregating data on-demand from a plurality of data sources without requiring a centralized multidimensional data warehouse.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's society, an enterprise needs to analyze large volumes of data to operatively determine areas of need. For example, an enterprise requires rapid execution time to complete a data query and allow analysis from a multidimensional data model. Another name for a multidimensional data model is a star schema. A star schema has one central fact table around which a set of other dimension tables are connected.
Typically, data repositories for an enterprise are set up using a four-tier architecture. The first tier is a database layer for physical data models. The second tier is a data access layer for performing extract/transform/load (ETL) data operations in a data warehouse. A data warehouse is a repository, or a collection of resources that can be accessed to retrieve information of an enterprise's electronically stored data. A data warehouse is designed to facilitate data analysis and reporting. The data analysis and reporting may, for example, be performed by business intelligence (BI) software applications. The third layer is a metadata layer for a data directory. Metadata is used to understand the information stored in a data warehouse and has become increasingly important in Web-based services. Metadata describes how, when, and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data is formatted. The metadata may include annotations. The annotations may specify a set of rules about how facts corresponding to data dimensions can be aggregated and/or transformed. A data dimension is a data attribute or element that categorizes each item in a data set into a category, group, or region. Examples of data dimensions are customer data, product data, sales data, date data, location data, and employee data, which an enterprise may be interested in having a business intelligence application analyze and report on regularly. A data dimension provides a means to separate data in a data warehouse and provides structured labeling of information. Finally, the fourth tier is an information access layer comprising reporting and business intelligence applications.